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Was Crippen Innocent?

This old chestnut had been promulgated over 60 years ago in the Reynolds News - a weekly UK newspaper - that revelled in making sensational disclosures.

In its edition dated 21 April 1948, it ran a full page story under the Banner Headline:

NOT GUILTY - BUT HE WAS HANGED

The authors, two British politicians, R.T. Paget K.C., M.P. and C.L. Hale, M.P. then provided an accurate summary of the Crippen story, before speculating that he had given his wife an accidental overdose of Hyoscine, the drug that had killed her.

The writers concluded by tamely asking:

'Is not [the accidental overdose hypothesis] far more likely?'

Likely or not, this was never offered as a defence by Crippen and, even if it had been put forward, it would still have had to convince the Jury.

More recently, there has been an even more sensational claim based on DNA Analyses which purported to show that the remains in the cellar were not those of Crippen's wife and that they had actually belonged to a male!

However, this claim is inherently flawed because, in those days, the Crime Scene Investigators were understandably less rigorous in their collection of 'clues' than their modern day counterparts.

A well-known photograph of Chief Inspector Dew and his team reveals that none of them was wearing any protective clothing, not even gloves!

(Click to Enlarge the Images.)

Equally well-known photographs also show the cellar where the body was discovered and the hallway through which the cellar was approached. The cellar was quite tiny, with a relatively large hole out of which the remains had been collected.

Given that the Investigators were not wearing any protective clothing, serious contamination of the human remains would have been inevitable.

Worse, at Crippen's Trial:

Police Constable CHARLES PITTS testified that on July 13 he purchased a bottle of Neville's disinfecting fluid; this was diluted with water and poured round the walls of the cellar; at that time the remains were still in the hole.

Sprinkling disinfecting fluid around at a Crime Scene was decidedly not a good idea: it certainly would not be done nowadays, because of the risk of contaminating the evidence.

At Crippen's Trial, Dr William Willcox - a Scientific Analyst at the Home Office - testified that he had 'asked Pitts for a bottle [of disinfectant] so that he could compare it with anything he may find later'.

Willcox also testified that 'I found traces of arsenic in the intestines and liver, and traces of creosol [the chemical name for commercial carbolic acid] in the stomach and kidney, and intestines and liver-small traces. I attach no importance to those; they were due to the disinfectants.'

Given that all the Investigators at the Crime Scene and all the Scientists who examined the evidence were exclusively male, it would have been truly remarkable if the DNA Analyses had produced any other 'result'.

The proponents of this hypothesis also ignored other evidence collected from the Crime Scene that clearly contradicted their finding:

For example Exhibits 44. 45. 46 and 47 (four jars containing hair) and also a camisole:

44 Long hair in Hinde's Curler in Jar no. 3
45 Short hair in jar
46 Hair in Hinde's Curler with celluloid stem
47 Hair in curler with celluloid stem

Hinde's Curlers were necessarily female artefacts (see Image) that had become popular during Victorian times with women wishing to curl their flowing locks. They were exclusively used by women and Lily Langtry had appeared in advertisements promoting their use.

One of the Prosecution Witnesses, Augustus Joseph Pepper, a Master in Surgery, London University, F.R.C.P., and Consulting Surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital who had been in active practice as a surgeon for about 35 years testified:

(Witness spoke to placing in glass jars various fragments and articles, including some hair in a Hinde curler and a tuft of hair in a handkerchief.)

I measured the hair found in the Hinde curler. The longest hairs were 8 inches and the shortest 2 inches; of course, there are intermediate lengths. In my opinion, being of that length and bleached partly, the hair would be a woman's; I mean the dark brown, the part not in the curler, and light brown in the curler. The dark brown was the hair of the root. The roots were present. The hair placed by me in the third jar is now decidedly darker than when I first saw it; I am referring particularly to that part in the curler. The portion of hair I found in the handkerchief I think also is slightly darker now. This is in both cases partly due to the drying, and being more compressed together; possibly also the bleaching effect has gone off somewhat. On August 5 I examined some hair at St. Mary's Hospital; the greater part was two to three inches long; the longest six inches. The colour was dark brown, shading off to light brown. All the specimens of hair are somewhat darker now than when first discovered. On August 8 I examined two loose hairs at the mortuary. They were lying loose on a part of the abdominal wall; one was 5 inches and the other 8 inches. They were of the same colour as the other hair - dark brown. It was a woman's hair. I also examined some hair that I believe to be pubic hair. Those hairs were twenty in number; some were free from the surface, others were still fixed; by "free" I mean not attached to the skin. They were dark brown in colour, corresponding with the undyed hair. They were from half an inch to one inch in length; they showed the roots at one end, and the other end tapered off. In all the other specimens the hair, of course, had been cut -roots at one end, cut at the other. This showed roots at one end, and the other end tapered.

Another Prosecution Witness, Mrs. Adeline Harrison, testified:

I knew Mrs. Crippen for 12 or 13 years. When I first knew her, her hair was dark brown; afterwards it was bleached. On August 18 I was shown the four specimens of hair; it resembles Mrs. Crippen's hair as I have seen it in the morning before she was dressed. She wore an undergarment similar to the camisole shown to me.

Circumstantial Evidence

Other strong circumstantial evidence is otherwise hard to explain if Crippen were, indeed, innocent. For example:

(a) Crippen was the last person to see his wife alive.

(b) Clearly, Crippen had had access to his own cellar but not anyone else, apart from the Police after Crippen had made his getaway. (The notion that the Police had planted the evidence doesn't stand up because how could they have possibly known about the Hyoscine or even the Hinde's Curlers?)

(c) Why had Crippen lied in his Statement to Chief Inspector Dew (Ex 39) about not having pawned any of his wife's jewellery?

(d) Why had Crippen lied to his wife's friends about first, her disappearance and then her death?

(e) Why had Ethel Le Neve disposed of Crippen's wife's clothes and some of her other belongings?

(f) Why had Crippen purchased 5 grains of Hyoscine on 19th January 1910 - just 13 days before his wife's disappearance?

(g) Why had Crippen lied to the Chemist when he had purchased the Hyoscine by saying it was required by Munyon's Remedies - when, later, it would be demonstrated that this was untrue?

(h) Why did Crippen do a runner with Le Neve in such a ridiculous disguise?

Of course, it would be unfair to expect anyone to have learnt of various other aspects of the case that, so far as is known, are now being published for the first time on this site, For example:

(i) Le Neve's systematic emptying of Belle Elmore's Post Office Savings Account.

(j) Crippen's obsession with Ethel Le Neve and his desire to console her for the loss of their unborn child.

(k) Crippen's mounting financial worries that would have been exacerbated if his wife were to leave him, taking the bulk of their life savings with her.

If you have any further doubts, please check out the rest of this site.

 

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